This year, the index compares 146 countries (18 more than last year), covering 98% of the global population. The highest score was recorded by a triplet comprising Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. On the other hand, bottom places were taken by Afghanistan, Chad and the Central African Republic.

A glimpse of the ranking shows that the Czech Republic dropped by four places from 22^nd position last year. However, this year’s score – 84.66/100 – was an increase from 84.22/100 in 2017, which placed the Czech Republic just below the USA. Moreover, the Czech Republic took second place, closely following Slovenia, in the evaluation of the “new” EU countries. The Czech Republic also improved from an economic perspective. GDP per capita with regard to purchasing power parity saw a year-on-year increase of USD 958 to USD 31,339. The Czech Republic’s ranking was adversely affected especially by including Luxembourg and Singapore in the index as well as by a significantly higher score recorded by some other countries.

“The shift in some indicators resulted from changes in methodology (such as including an indicator of housing availability from a financial point of view) or slight fluctuations in the public opinion. For example, the perceived criminality indicator dropped by one level out of five, although no significant change was recorded in the police’s statistics,” comments Josef Kotrba, Chairman at Deloitte, on the index results.   

In the long term, the Czech Republic has recorded the best results in basic human needs, specifically nutrition and basic healthcare, the level of drinking water and hygiene as well as shelter. Nevertheless, a sharp decrease was seen in the level of personal safety and access to higher education. Tolerance and integration, human rights and personal freedom have slightly improved.

If there were 100 people living on the Earth…

… 46 would have access to the Internet, 58 to independent media, 87 to electricity, 63 to tap water, 68 to basic hygiene facilities, 11 would be undernourished and 28 would live in a place which is friendly to homosexuals.

If the entire world were a single country, it would place between Botswana (89^th) and the Philippines (90^th) in the ranking. In terms of points, the world dropped by 1.39 points (64.85 in 2017 and 63.46 in 2018), predominantly in human rights.

More information on the Social Progress Index 2018 is available here.